


I Will Hold The Morning For You

by prufrocks



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-01
Updated: 2011-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 21:10:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prufrocks/pseuds/prufrocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur's had terrible days, but this one makes all those others seem like cake walks. He'll be fine, as long as he makes it to the roof before daylight.</p><p>Warning for violence, language, minor original character death.</p><p>Written for the Reverse Bang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Hold The Morning For You

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a pinch hit for i_reversebang , as a companion to milenaa ’s gorgeous art. I hope this fic does it justice.
> 
> Huge thanks to a lot of people, including but not limited to: chibi_lurrel for encouraging me to take this on; my enormous beta coalition (dreadly , cs_whitewolf , knowmydark ) for their hard work; Sarah for her invaluable army medic skills and ability to flail even though she hasn’t seen this movie yet; starlingthefool , my life beta, for her ass-whipping skills; and last but possibly most important, to five_of_five , for everything she’s done over the past month that made this fic possible. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you guys.
> 
> Title taken from the Hey Marseilles song "Hold The Morning". I do not own Inception, Touching The Void, or any of Van Morrison's songs.

“Arthur.”

Eames’ face looms into view, breaking through the haze of pretty lights.

“Arthur, can you hear me?”

Arthur shakes his head, clearing away the rest of the splotches in his vision. He has no recollection of getting to his current position- on his ass with his back against the wall- but from the bloody fire burning up and down his left side and the metallic tang in his mouth, he knows he’s probably fucked. They’re in the same mostly empty apartment that they’ve been working out of all week, on the sixth floor of the abandoned development with harbor views of Boston’s skyline. Shards of glass cover the floor, and the cloth that Arthur had insisted they set up over the window has been dropped.

“Dream?” he asks, wincing as he opens his mouth; the blood around his teeth seems to be coming from a slice in his lips.

Eames shakes his head. “I’d fish out your totem for you, but you’re not going to like the result.”

There’s a lump on the floor behind Eames wearing Laura’s sweater, and as Arthur blinks he realized it is Laura herself, slumped in a pool of blood.

“What happened?” he asks Eames, trying and failing to lift his arm to wipe some of the blood out of his mouth.

“Sniper. We’ve been made.” Eames is busy ripping a towel into strips. “I tried to knock you out of the way, but he managed to hit you in the side. You smacked your mouth on the ground rather hard.”

Arthur vaguely remembers the end of the dream: They’d been sitting in a bar, discussing tactics, when Laura’s eyes had grown wide and she’d vanished with an “Oh!” Eames had pulled out his gun and shot himself in the head without any explanation, and the next thing Arthur knew, he was in a world of pain.

“Sit rep,” Arthur coughs out, and spits a wad of blood onto the floor.

“Looks like the bastards at Pantheon found out about the extraction. The sniper’s just the beginning, Arthur, they’re going to start storming the ground floor in a few minutes.”

“Laura?”

Eames’ face changes, a flash of anger before settling back into the hard look he uses when he’s about to punch something. “They got her in the neck. Didn’t even give her a chance to run.”

Arthur jerks forward off of the wall, reaching towards Laura’s still form. “She needs-”

Eames shoves him gently back, tugging Arthur’s eyelids open to check his pupils. “She’s gone, Arthur. There’s nothing we can do.”

Arthur struggles for a minute and then slumps back against the wall. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Eames agrees. “But we’re going to be in an even bigger spot of bother unless we move now.” He reaches underneath Arthur’s shirt, pressing a handful of towel-strip bandages to the bleeding mess. Arthur looks down.

“How bad?” Arthur asks, but he knows the answer already; Eames is always far kinder to him in emergencies.

Eames grunts, not meeting Arthur’s eyes. “You’ll live, if we can get you up to the roof before too long. I radioed my Blackthorn contact, he’s sending us a helicopter ASAP. Should be here by sunrise.” Eames has run out of bandages at this point. “I’d offer you painkillers but I’m afraid I finished the last of the Advil with my hangover this morning.”

“Fuck you,” Arthur moans. Eames grins, and then pulls his own shirt off. “I didn’t mean that literally, Eames.”

“Of course, darling,” Eames says. He deftly folds the shirt and ties it around Arthur’s ribcage, ignoring Arthur’s hiss of pain. “Much better.” Eames shoves his free hand into Arthur’s mouth. “I’m sorry about this,” he says, “but I have to tighten it,” and then-

Arthur channels all of the force that he would have put into the scream of pain into biting down hard on the soft meaty part of Eames’ hand.

“Still with me?” asks Eames, tugging his hand out from between Arthur’s teeth and ruffling his hair with it. “Need you to stay responsive, alright, Arthur?”

Arthur blinks, and then shakes out his hands. “Alright.” He pulls his legs underneath him to prepare for the inevitable standing-up. “What’s the plan, then?” Arthur asks.

Eames rocks back on his heels, reaching for his abandoned shoulder holster a few feet away. “The roof access is on the thirtieth floor. The elevators go up to twenty-seven. There’s a few dozen at least outside, and they all have guns.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly.” Eames sighs. “We’ve got the two M16’s, your Glock, my Browning, six grenades, and whatever Laura was packing.” He thinks for a moment. “And that sword I picked up in Chinatown.”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “I didn’t think I’d ever be grateful for your idiotic spending habits.”

“Thank you, Arthur. The plan is this: You go up in the first elevator with one of the 16’s, your Glock, and two grenades. When you’re up as high as you can go, I’ll need you to take out the elevators. I’ll meet you up there shortly, and we can hack our way to the roof from there. Sound good?”

Arthur coughs, spitting out another glob of blood and saliva and trying to blow a lock of hair out of his face. He stares balefully down at the ruined shirt holding his ribcage together.

“What’s wrong?” asks Eames, eyebrow raised, then reconsiders. “Well, besides the obvious.”

“I liked this shirt.”

Eames sighs and smiles. “I know you did.”

“I bought you this shirt. After the job in Seattle where you-”

“Yes, I know,” Eames says, reaching for the grenades stockpiled next to Arthur’s slumped form. Arthur butts his head into Eames’ stomach, nosing the decade-old bullet wound and using Eames’ skin to push the stray lock of hair out of his face for good.  

“How are you so calm,” Arthur murmurs, his mouth nestled in Eames’ waistband. “When they shot you that day- I would have torn down the fucking Space Needle- you know I almost killed Mal because she got in my way-”

“Hush,” Eames interrupts, sliding a pair of grenades into Arthur’s pocket. “Have you ever seen me panic? I do my job and you do yours and sometimes, yes, it hits a little too close to home.” He tilts Arthur’s face up, sliding his tongue between Arthur’s lips, running it slowly across Arthur’s tattered mouth. “But the difference between you and me,” he says, removing his mouth from Arthur’s, “is that I keep a cool head during emergencies.”

“I hate you,” Arthur says.

“Let’s get you upstairs,” Eames says. He gets to his feet. “Want a hand?”

“No, I’ll just sit on the floor and bleed my way to the elevator.”

Eames lets out a bark of laughter, but stops short when they hear a round of shots and shouts from outside. “Come on,” he says, suddenly serious again, “let’s get you out of here before they break the door in.” He walks to the open door of the apartment, checking the hallway.

“We clear?” asks Arthur, mentally preparing himself for what comes next.

“Clear,” Eames repeats, coming back to Arthur’s side. He gathers up the weapons, sliding the grenades into his pocket, hoisting the rifles over his shoulder. He holds out his hands and Arthur takes them. “Fast and light. We go straight out the door to the west side elevator. I’ll need you to have my six.”

“I got you,” Arthur tells him, then stands. The room momentarily disappears into a grey haze, and Arthur swears he can see stars. Eames is there, though, and Arthur leans on him and takes a breath and waits for the panic to subside.

“I got you, too, Arthur,” Eames says quietly. They move towards the door.

They get ten feet down the hallway before the stairwell door is kicked open. Eames pushes Arthur towards the elevator and pulls out his Browning, levelling it at the intruder.

“Pantheon Security Systems, we need you to drop your weapons and exit the facility,” announces the man from behind the doorframe. He flashes his badge and his weapon, and then carefully steps out of the shadow, silver Pantheon uniform barely covering a bullet-proof vest.

“Get out,” Eames growls, cocking his pistol. “Arthur, call the elevator.” Arthur complies.

“Put down your weapon and exit the facility, Mr. Eames, or we will shoot you,” says the man. “Although, to be fair, we’ll probably shoot you once you leave the building, anyway.”

“Oh shut up, you moronic bastard,” Eames says, rolling his eyes, and pulls the trigger.

Arthur closes his eyes; he’s had enough looking at blood splatters for today. The elevator dings quietly behind him, and the doors slide open. “Eames.”

“One down,” Eames says. “Few dozen left to go. That’s your ride, Arthur.” He points to the open elevator.

“Remember that documentary we watched,” Arthur starts. “With the two guys mountain climbing in Peru, and he broke his leg, and his partner cut the rope on him, let him fall off the mountain?”

Eames walks over to the body of the Pantheon grunt and kicks him, gently. “Is this going to be some sort of idiotic lecture on leaving you to fight your way out of here alone like the bull-headed martyr you are?”

That is exactly Arthur’s angle, although he wouldn’t have called himself bull-headed. “I’m just- It’s okay if you have to leave me here. Get out, save yourself, you know?”

Eames bursts into laughter, barely holding back a snort. “Arthur. You’ve a bullet to the ribcage a half hour from the nearest hospital, not broken a leg on a mountain three days from the nearest town. We have a helicopter on its way. We’re going to be fine. Now get in the bloody elevator, you twat.”

Arthur complies.

It’s uncomfortable to stand and it’s uncomfortable to lean, and if he sits now he’ll never get back up, so Arthur nestles himself in the corner of the elevator, injured side out, Glock drawn in case anything is there to surprise him when he gets to the 27th floor.

Eames stands in the elevator doors as they fight to close on either side of him, hands over the second rifle, reaches out his hand to brush the same pesky lock of hair out of Arthur’s face. “Good luck,” he says at last, and Arthur knows it means so much more.

“May the force be with you, or something,” Arthur replies, rolling his eyes and punching the Door Close button. Eames steps backwards, humming something that sounds suspiciously like _Tupelo Honey_ , and is gone.

Elevators and shock do weird things to Arthur’s head, especially this early in the morning. He finds himself drifting back more than a decade, to a bigger elevator in an expensive hotel, to Newark, New Jersey. It was Dom’s first job in dreamshare outside of academia, and Arthur’s first job in dreamshare at all. Dom had sent him down early to scope out the hotel, but didn’t show up at the rendezvous time; Arthur, annoyed, bored, and horny, had taken it upon himself to get the best blowjob of his life in the staff elevator from the French jazz pianist employed in the lounge. It was nothing more than a throw-away hookup, until Arthur discovered that the French jazz pianist was neither French nor a jazz pianist at all, but Dom’s best friend, confidante, and associate: Eames, the smarmy fucker.

Their relationship hasn’t changed much since that first meeting; it’s still full of miscommunication and sex in semi-public locations. Every now and then, one of them tries to quantify it, and it falls apart, but they always come back together somehow, thrown together violently like a game of Demolition Derby. Eames is unpredictable- he can shift from ruthless violence to singing Van Morrison in a matter of seconds- and that used to bother Arthur. It used to bother Arthur a lot, until Eames got shot in the stomach on a job in Seattle and Arthur went batshit insane. He can’t remember the body count from that night- it was ten years ago, no one can remember details that old- but he does remember the look on Mal’s face when he’d pointed his Glock at her for getting in his way. That night had left them with more than one permanent scar- the one on Eames, of course, but also the tattoo on Arthur’s ass and the knowledge that he could be just as unpredictable as Eames. There’s a metaphor in there, somewhere, but Arthur’s eyes are drooping and the blood loss is fucking with his ability to think clearly.

The elevator finally stops, pulling Arthur out of his reverie, and he shoves himself back onto his feet and stumbles out. His foot stays in the door, blocking it, and he watches it attempt to close over and over, bouncing off his shoe. He shakes his head and tugs one of the grenades out of his pocket. After dropping the rifle and calling up the second elevator across the hallway, he pushes a few buttons on the first one, then pulls the pin of the grenade and tosses it in just as the doors close. _Fuck you, elevator,_ he thinks, and after a few seconds, he braces himself on the wall and feels the building shake.

The other elevator’s doors open, and Arthur limps over to it, but before he can repeat the grenade toss, there’s a man with a gun in a silver Pantheon uniform barreling out of it. “Drop your weapon,” he says.

“Fuck you,” Arthur replies, tossing the grenade past the man and into the elevator right as the doors begin to close. He moves to brace himself on the wall again but the man comes at him fast, grabbing at Arthur’s shirt and yanking him towards the ground, but Arthur makes sure to bring the man- Timothy Palmer, his Pantheon badge reads- down with him. The grenade explodes as they fall to the floor, and as the entire building shudders the two roll across the hallway.

Palmer still has his gun out, and he’s fumbling with the safety as he tries to roll Arthur into the corner, but even with a gaping hole in his side Arthur is still the nimblest man in this corner of the continent. With a few well-placed kicks, Arthur’s suddenly on top; he uses the momentum to propel himself up again, knocking the gun out of Palmer’s hand in the process. It discharges as it hits the ground, the bullet lodging into the ceiling, and they both stop fighting for a moment, staring at the close call. Then Palmer’s on his feet again, reaching for Arthur’s neck. They tussle for a minute, grappling with each other. Arthur sinks a punch into Palmer’s stomach, and feels his bandage start to rupture. Palmer uses Arthur’s momentary distraction to grab him in a headlock, and Arthur’s vision starts to cut out.

He’s vaguely aware of the stairwell door opening, but he’s using all of his energy to slap at Palmer’s arms and kick with his feet as Palmer drags him down the hallway. Suddenly, though, it all stops. Palmer’s body goes still, his arms drop away from Arthur’s neck, and Arthur is sliding back down to the floor, gasping for air, his field of vision slowly widening. He looks up.

Eames is standing there, still shirtless, toothpick in mouth, sword pressed against Palmer’s throat. “Leave him the fuck alone,” he growls, then showers Arthur with a spray of Palmer’s blood.

Arthur blinks.

“I told you this sword was a good investment,” Eames says, grinning now.

Arthur takes in the scene behind him: there’s a Pantheon guy slumped against the wall a few yards down the hallway, and another one propping the stairwell door open. He wipes the spray of blood off his eyelids. “Do you even realize how unsanitary that was?”

Eames rolls his eyes. “Honestly, Arthur, we have slightly more important things to worry about. Like the fact that I ran out of ammo in the stairwell, or your tiny flesh wound.” He wipes the sword clean on his pants, two long strokes, and Arthur can’t help but feel disgusted when he remembers that his head was resting on that pant leg half an hour ago.

“Important or not, it still makes me want to puke,” Arthur says, disentangling himself from Palmer’s body. He pulls his left arm a little too hard, and sucks in a breath as the pain in his ribs flares up again. “Fuck-”

Eames is already on the ground, shoving Palmer’s corpse out of the way. “What do you need, Arthur, what is it-”

“It’s fine, fuck, I just pulled it too hard.” It isn’t fine, though, and Arthur curls himself around his damaged ribs, trying not to breathe too deeply.

Eames is there, taking Arthur’s hand. “I’m sorry,” he says, “Sorry, Arthur, but we’re wasting time-”

“I know, it’s okay, I’m sorry too.” Arthur squeezes Eames’ fingers, and their eyes lock, but suddenly the stairwell door is banging open again and shots are being fired.

Eames grabs Arthur’s M16, spraying bullets down the hallway, until suddenly there’s a click and the clip is empty. “Fuck this,” he swears, pulling out his Browning and shooting the next man to push through the door in the face. He’s on his feet then, scooping up the rifle belonging to one of the Pantheon men on the floor and pulling out its clip. “Arthur, we may end up being hosed unless we move now, so I’m going to come back there and help you up and then we’re going to go up those fucking stairs and get to the roof and go home, alright?”

“Sounds good to me,” Arthur says, biting through his lip and pulling himself to his feet. Eames is back at his side but Arthur pushes him off. “I can do this one, Eames.”

Eames stares at him, then nods. “Let’s go.” He pushes open the stairwell door.

“How many of the grenades did you use when you were coming up the stairs?” asks Arthur, mentally counting the flights of stairs that had holes in them.

“Just one, but I threw it really nicely,” Eames says. “You would have complimented it.”

“Probably not,” Arthur tells him, edging off the landing and up the first step.

Eames looks at him, pouting, and then shrugs. “You’re right, probably not,” he says, then tosses another grenade down the stairs. They brace themselves.

After the shaking subsides the gunfire downstairs starts up again, so Eames pushes Arthur up the stairs and releases the bolt on the M16. Arthur takes his time climbing them, not wanting to shift the bandages again. The blasts from Pantheon’s guns draw closer, and Eames begins to return fire.

It’s a long haul up three flights of stairs.  Arthur’s dragging by the time gets to the top of the first, but Eames is behind him, back to back, without so much as a snide remark. They don’t hit a snag until they reach the roof access, which is locked.

“Did you happen to grab the keys before we left the apartment?” asks Arthur.

“Yeah, and I put them...” Eames pauses, then turns around sheepishly. “They’re on the floor next to the extra clip for my rifle.”

“Well, fuck,” Arthur sighs. “Give me your toothpick, then.”

“That’s unsanitary,” complains Eames, but he hands it over.

“I’m going to fucking kill you if you’re worrying about cleanliness now,” Arthur says, twisting the toothpick until he hears a satisfactory click. He hadn’t been expelled from MIT for nothing.

The door swings open and Arthur and Eames are met with a spray of bullets hitting the wall behind them. “Fuck!” Eames pulls Arthur back by his collar, pushing through the door first. “Fuck off, you arseholes!” The shooting stops, and Arthur pokes his head around the door in time to see Eames aim a kick at one of the three bodies on the roof. “Fucker,” Eames mutters.

Arthur reaches into Eames’ pocket, pulling out the last two grenades. They share a glance, and Arthur pulls the pins and tosses them back into the building as Eames slams the door shut. They drop to the ground to brace themselves.

“We’re never taking a job for military contracters again,” Arthur says, as the building gives a massive shake.

“Is everyone dead? I think everyone’s dead. Please tell me everyone’s dead, because I don’t want to deal with this job anymore,” says Eames.

They stand up, slowly, and walk to the edge of the roof. The sun is just starting to come up over the Atlantic, and Boston is slowly starting to come to life. The freezing air and the blood loss finally catch up with Arthur, and he sinks back down to the ground, his vision starting to tunnel out again.

“Arthur.”

He blinks, letting Eames’ face swim back into view.

“Arthur, you’re going to be fine.”

He can hear the sweet drone of the helicopter on its way.

“Salvation, thank fuck,” says Eames, standing up to flag the helicopter down.

“Eames?”

“Yeah, Arthur?”

Arthur drops his head onto Eames’ leg. “Thank you.”

Eames smiles down at him. “Let’s get out of here,” he says, and the helicopter lands as the sun breaks over the water.


End file.
